Main Street’s Developing Neighborhood

by Karen Maserjian Shan

When Tim Buzinski and his wife Mei Ying So decided to open a wine shop, they chose to locate it in Beacon.

“We were looking for a place where we would feel comfortable and really liked to live,” said Buzinski, who, with So moved form Queens, NY to Beacon Hill this summer and opened their store, the Artisan Wine Shop at 180 Main Street in August.

“We were looking around at different towns and we came upon Beacon…and we figured that this would be the perfect place for us,” he said, adding he and his wife liked the culture and diversity of residents and businesses the City offered. The couple also is happy with the close relationships they’ve formed with the business community and customers, many of whom they see around town.

“Everybody’s trying to get on the same page to promote not just their own businesses but the town as a whole,” Buzinski said. “We’re really exited to be here.”

Beginning at the west at North Avenue/Route 9D and going eastward about a mile-and-a-half to its end at Herbert Street, Main Street isn’t the same neighborhood it was less than a decade ago. 

Nowadays, retailers, office-owners and restaurateurs are taking advantage of prime, first floor storefronts along Main Street, revitalizing long neglected buildings and bringing needed business to the area, while retaining – and often improving – apartments located on upper floors, all of which has added to the area’s value.

“In the 80s they (City officials) were happy that anything was going on in town, so they didn’t have any prohibition about converting former store fronts into apartments,” said Tim Dexter, building inspector for the City of Beacon.

But almost 10 years ago the City adopted zoning for Main Street that amortized ground floor apartments out, where each landlord was given a certain amount of time to convert his ground floor apartments into commercial space. 

“It took us, probably, 8 years or so to get all of the Main Street (store front) apartments vacated, but I think that has a large part to do with what happens on Main Street,” said Dexter, including the rising presence of adjacent storefront businesses.

“You want to keep that mercantile flavor from one building to another so that people keep walking and shopping,” Dexter said. “If you break that with residential occupancies, people stop, turn around and go back. “

Businesspeople aren’t the only ones benefiting from the zoning changes on Main Street. So are residents.

“As property gets improved, it adds to the value of all the other properties around it,” said Dexter, including homes in nearby neighborhoods. “Good things happen,” he said. “People start to fix up; everybody starts to fix up.”

Councilperson at-large, Lee Kyriacou, said when he and his wife first moved to the area from Queens, NY in 1992, his real estate agent tried to steer them in another direction. “I remember the quote vividly,” he said of his agent. “ ‘Don’t go there, it’s the armpit of the county.’ ”
At the time, Main Street’s east end was empty and boarded up; its west end was occupied by tenement apartments. But Kyriacou and his wife liked the city’s close proximity to the train station, mountain views and gritty community. They bought an old Victorian house in town, moved in and got involved with the community.

Taking steps to eliminate ground floor apartments facing Main Street, while retaining upper level apartments and restricting homeowners’ ability to convert single family homes into multi-family residences incited great change in the City and on Main Street, in particular, Kyriacou said.

“They’re willing to invest in their homes,” said Kyriacou of people who now live in Beacon. “They’re investing in their community; they’re having kids here…It’s all around Main Street, so it’s creating a market.”

That’s important for the area’s businesses and community, for now some two-thirds of the buildings at each end of Main Street have been renovated with, perhaps, half the buildings in the middle portion of the street restored.

“You want enough people living within a block – a real walking distance of Main Street – so that there is 24/7 activity and the kind of walk-around traffic that’s going to support those commercial buildings,” Kyriacou said.

You also want good city-wide planning that addresses a mix of housing types, he said, the availability of everyday services and entertainment venues, plus eye-catching appeal to attract shoppers, businesses and people looking for a place to live.

“It’s all about zoning,” Kyriacou said. “What are you encouraging? What are you discouraging?”

While City departments aren’t proactively encouraging landlords to rehabilitate their properties, “in a general sense, we try and make it as easy as government can to go through the process,” Dexter said, although it sometimes takes time to work through steps involved in getting special use permits, site plan approvals and such. Still, there are areas of concern. 

“One of the major stumbling blocks in Main Street development and redevelopment is parking,” Dexter said.

Building owners wanting to change the use of their property from one type of business or service to another must submit their plan to the planning board for review, including provisions for parking, which can be difficult.

“Most of the Main Street buildings take up 100 percent of their site and they don’t have any off-street parking available,” Dexter said. With that, business owners must apply for a variance for the parking requirement, with the owners paying $1,500 for each parking space the board grants a variance for. While the money goes into a fund dedicated to the development of more municipal parking, having to pay thousands of dollars to settle the issue could deter would-be business owners from settling on Main Street.

“Any 10 spots in Beacon, you’re talking about a $15,000 one-time fee,” Dexter said, for parking variances. “And that’s often too large an obstacle for an upstart business to overcome.”

Property investor, David Lloyds, vice president of Beacon Terminals Associates, had a different perspective.

“I think the bigger issues than parking are getting some major economic development and investment to start happening in Beacon,” said Lloyds, whose company owns a number of properties in town. “You have to get people to really start spending money, improving buildings on Main Street.”

Lloyds said while Dia has been a major development for the City and the impending Rivers and Estuaries Center and Scenic Hudson’s mixed-use waterfront plan both promise economic rewards, the latter two are still to come. So, too, he said, is the revitalization of the properties his company owns, including the former Unico Special Products plant at 1 East Main, the brick ‘round house’ building located near the former factory, Main Street’s theater and other properties.

“What we’re interested in doing is developing down-and-out, polluted sites into something that is beneficial to the community and for economic growth,” he said. Still, the company purchased most of its properties in the business district around 2001; a long time for them to sit undeveloped, Lloyds said.

“We’d definitely like to see things move along better,” he said. Part of the delay in getting the buildings renovated has been the lengthy process involved in doing so. "It takes years to go through a development process and develop a project," Lloyds said. "It’s very complex and takes the cooperation of a lot of different people; the City, the developer, people who finance the project." To that end, his company has made efforts to open communications with the city council, particularly since everyone agrees that “Beacon would be better served if they (the industrial buildings) were redeveloped,” Lloyd said. "We’ve been carrying these properties for a long time and the sooner we can get these developed, the better for us, also," he said.

Two of Lloyd’s company’s buildings are in contract to purchase: the theater, whose agreement is with a company that operates movie theaters, and 381 Main, a mixed-used property whose deal is with a private investor. Several other mixed-used properties are for sale and plans are in the works for the rehabilitation of the former Unico Special Products building and ‘round house’ on the east end, most likely as a mix of condominiums and rental apartments.

Having residences located within walking distance of Main Street provides City residents with convenient access to needed services and businesses, which in turn, supports and encourages the business community, Lloyd said.

“I think that everyone is ready to see something happen, including the City and us and working together we’re going to make something happen,” Lloyds said. It’s going to be great.”

Comments

[Gary Wood]

Mr. Lloyd states "You have to get people to really start spending money, improving buildings on Main Street"
Plenty of people have spent money improving buildings,some their life savings to take a chance on improving Beacon.His company has stockpiled properties waiting for their values to increase on others sweat and money as Mr. Dexter points out "As property gets improved, it adds to the value of all the other properties around it,” said Dexter, including homes in nearby neighborhoods. “Good things happen,” he said. “People start to fix up; everybody starts to fix up.”
I agree with this although , I would say "most " people .
Most of the buildings were purchased in 2001 and have sat with Unico being the only one with any type of plan brought before the city albeit far from complete plans.
The Round House is slowly rotting (the city has already lost the Rubber shop to neglect)and several in the center of Main Street lie empty keeping that area a no mans land near the Post Office
This would be an ideal space for some type of Town square with Green Space that a developer with serious concerns of the future of the city should donate in good faith.
Today ,10/28/2006,there is news of a possible buyer for the movie theatre .Hopefully a serious qualified developer will take the project and bring it to fruition and Mr Lloyds company will sell their other properties take their profits and let Beacon move forward in its renaissance.
Beacon should consider changing it's property tax laws which punish those who invest and beautify their properties while taxing rundown slums at a lower rate allowing less concientious investors to carry said properties with minimal taxes until they reap unearned capital gains.

[Physcal Responsibility]

Yes,a developer in good faith should donate land to the city. That should happen with Hiddenbrooke. Wait a minute, the developer did offer to donate 80 acres to the city. I guess that wasn't good enough for this administration.

[FGOHJ]

80 ACRES THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN TO EXPENSIVE TO BUILD ON DUE TO EXISTING CONDITIONS.

[marie-louise]

HI,

ARE WE GETTING A FILM CENTER/MOVIE THEATRE ON MAIN STREET AND IF SO, WHEN WILL IT OPEN?? ARE THERE LIMITS TO HOW LONG A DEVELOPER CAN HOLD ON TO AN EMPTY LOT OR BUILDING WITHOUT DEVELOPING IT?? IF NOT, THERE SHOULD BE.

ANOTHER COMMENT WITH REGARDS TO A PUBLIC PARK/SITTING AREA/PARK OR SQUARE IS THAT IT WOULD BE A FANTASTIC IDEA. ONE PARK/SITTING AREA SHOULD BE ON THE RIVER ON EAST MAIN AND THE OTHER MIDWAY DOWN MAIN. WE COULD ENJOY CONCERTS THERE AND MAYBE FLEA MARKETS OR OUTDOOR ART SHOWS, HIGH SCHOOL BAND, ETC. THE LOT ON MID MAIN COULD BE GREAT FOR THAT. SINCE PARKING IS ALSO A SERIOUS CONCERN FOR SHOPS ETC. ONE OTHER IDEA IS THAT IF NOBODY IS DEVELOPING THAT ABANDONED FACTORY LOT ON EAST MAIN BY THE RIVER BY A CERTAIN DATE, THEY SHOULD HAVE TO SELL AND THERE COULD BE A MULTI LEVEL PARKING LOT BUILT ON THAT LOTS PLACE (NOT THE BUILDING SITE, JUST THE LOT) THANKS FOR LETTING ME REPLY. M-L